For his birthday this year, Logan really wanted to go to California. So we did! Unfortunately, Noah had to work the week, so he stayed home. Yet, I survived taking a 6/7 year old through the airports solo. Both of our families still live in CA, and the grandparents are only about 30-min apart. We stayed with Noah’s parents as my family worked during the week. However, we had a beach day, where we saw many crabs on the shore, spent the day at the Santa Barbara Zoo (I haven’t been there since I was probably Logan’s age!), and of course, a party for the birthday boy! My sister spear-headed the party, with multiple contributions. It was at a favorite park and featured pink (Logan’s current favorite color), carrot cake, subs, a jolly jump, and many friends and their kids. The only thing missing was Noah
Visiting Canada wasn’t the only thing we did during the month of August. Here’s a round-up.
Logan finished up his second season of t-ball. He’s a natural at switch-hitting, which I fully encourage. This had to be the hottest summer for t-ball. I spent several practices sitting under the shade of an umbrella in an attempt to sweat-less. Yes, I love the sun and the heat, but this summer I also spent the majority of my work-day outside with my students. Needless to say, I had quite the tan!
August also meant I started another semester of graduate school. After this semester, I will have thee courses remaining and am currently on track to graduate in May 2018. I am ready to be done, but not willing to speed-up the process. My sanity and bank account can’t handle that. Logan loves to buy me bouquets of flowers so I have something pretty to look at whilst I’m stuck at my desk for hours.
Another fun summer event we participated in this year was free movies in the park, put on by our town. We would bring some blankets, popcorn, and settle down in the grass to watch films like Shrek and Wall-E. I love this tradition, now that Logan is old enough to stay awake and attend to the movies!
We rounded-out the month by celebrating my birthday. No big fanfare. Noah bought me a new camera and we all enjoyed cheesecake. Happy birthday, to me!
Seriously, what’s not to like? We enjoyed it so much last year that we returned this summer! We gave Logan the choice of which province between Saskatchewan or Manitoba. He chose Manitoba, so off to Winnipeg we went! We actually stayed at a small Provincial Park about 45 minutes away from Winnipeg, which provided enough distance from the city to feel like we were among nature, but close enough to do day trip excursions.
Our travel to Canada, did not go as planned, however. Shortly after crossing into North Dakota, our truck started having issues. We made a quick trip to Minnesota to run the check engine code and get an idea of what was going on (sure we could have visited an auto parts store in Fargo, but by driving into Minnesota, I was able to cross another state off my list). The code wasn’t very helpful. Thankfully, we were still able to drive and tow, just at a reduced RPM. After getting settled at our campsite, the next day we dropped the truck off at a Ford dealership and headed to the Assinboine Zoo (the dealership shuttle dropped us off). Turns out the high-pressure fuel pump went out on the truck and would take days to fix! Days! Oh and about $4,000 USD! Our trip just got a lot more expensive and now we were stranded sans vehicle. To save me the headache of trying to find a rental vehicle on my own, I gave AAA a call and let them figure everything out for us. Thank you, AAA! Because of this fiasco, we didn’t get a change to go to the Assiniboine Park, next door to the zoo and see the Winnie the Pooh statue. Bummer. But the zoo did have a really cool animatronic dinosaur exhibit and polar bears!
Manitoba has a long history of Mennonite and eastern-European settlers, so one of our day trips took us to a Mennonite village.
Logan sitting in a Mennonite school room.
We also drove to Lake Winnipeg, which is the largest lake in North America! We visited the lake in the town of Gimli, which is near the Southern tip and the narrow section. And yet, we still couldn’t see across the lake! Amazing!
Also, if you’re ever in the town of Gimli, eat here. They have the best pierogies and cabbage rolls I have ever eaten! I wish they would open a branch in Colorado! But alas, there are no Ukrainian restaurants anywhere in the state!
Another great aspect of the trip was we met some awesome locals who happened to be camping in the site next to us. Our trip coincided with the first week of the Olympic games, and I had been streaming the games online during our trip to make sure we didn’t miss any of the action. Our last night in Canada, our new aforementioned neighbors invited us over to their camper to watch the Olympics with them. Their camper had the ability to mount a TV on the outside. So we all pulled up some chairs, shared some beers and popcorn and jointly cheered on our respective teams. It was awesome! People in Canada (and those from MB, especially, are some of the nicest people we’ve ever met)!
Even with the vehicle troubles, we loved our Canadian vacation and will be back again, probably in 2017. Which province shall we visit this time?
If you guessed camping, you would be correct! If you haven’t figured it out yet, our family loves to camp (or go campering). Even my colleagues have figured this out. Anytime there is a long weekend, I will be asked by several coworkers if I am going camping and where. Some have even sought out my opinion on places to go camping. This year my work extended our Independence Day holiday by giving us the whole week off! We didn’t go camping for the full week, but we did extend our trip a bit longer than normal (this also cuts down on sitting in holiday traffic). We continued our tradition of camping with friends, and going to a new location. This year, we went to State Forest State Park, which is known for it’s moose population!
More so than ever before was I thankful to have a camper on this trip! The second night I came down with a GI plague. Oh so glad was I to have an indoor bathroom to see to my needs! Just imagine how awful it would be to sit in a cold vault toilet with the pukes and poops! Ugh, no thanks! I’m also thankful that although I felt pretty miserable the follow day, everything was out of my system pretty quick. The other downside to this trip was that the day after I was sick, Noah biked pulling a kid on a tag along and gave himself altitude sickness. Not nearly as serious, but not fun either, but an easier recovery.
Illnesses aside, we still managed to hike and see a plethora of wild flora and fauna. For the animal count we saw: many deer, a fox, a beaver, several moose, voles and one porcupine!
If I could (afford to) live anywhere in the world, I’m pretty sure it would be Routt County, Colorado. Man that is God’s country, right there. I’m pretty sure Steamboat Lake is my happy place. It’s far removed from the hustle bustle of Steamboat Springs, and nestled in a picturesque river valley. We first discovered Steamboat Lake when we went camping there last year over Memorial Day weekend. As beautiful as it was, it was cold and wet. But then again, you can’t go camping in Colorado’s high country at the end of May and not expect either rain or snow. I am thankful that we had a camper with a heater for that trip. The few neighbors we had in tents froze out after struggling to get a fire going with damp wood. This year we returned during June and had beautifully sunny weather with daytime times in the 80s. It wouldn’t be camping in Colorado though without a little rain in the form of an afternoon storm. Luckily those that went through were short in duration.
This year we also had a new camper to take with! Much larger both is length and width, more luxuries, a full kitchen. Haha! No more roughing it! Not only did our site have electric hookups but it had a lovely view of the lake! An added bonus is that for one night, our trip overlapped with some friends, so we were able to let the kids romp around and enjoy a meal together. The own downside to the trip was the recent hatching of mayflies! Walking on the trail by the lake shore was akin to running away from tracker jackers in the Hunger Games. Granted, mayflies don’t bite but they sure are annoying! It probably also didn’t help that I also had a bag of dog poop in my hands!
My favorite time of year, camping season! For Colorado that starts Memorial Day weekend (unless you’re really hardcore and like to camp in snow caves — no thanks). But even that close to summer, we always expect snow when we camp that weekend. This year, we camped along Turquoise Lake, near Leadville, around 10,000-ft elevation. On the way up, it snowed. I think we ended up with about an inch of snow that first day, but then it melted. The campground where we stayed had a great system for keeping sites dry and creating small retention ponds for runoff. Logan loved “fishing” in the pond behind our site. He’s such a Colorado kid, that he was out there in shorts, despite the cold weather and snow on the ground. If you went to the lake at the right time of the day, the water was like glass, clearly reflecting the nearby mountain peaks. The campground was also tucked back into a copse of ponderosa trees. Very serene. This trip was also our inaugural camping vacation with the new camper! So much more luxurious than our little TrailManor!
I don’t remember a big fan fare when I graduated from kindergarten, but perhaps there was one. Friday, Logan graduated from kindergarten (although the school year doesn’t end until later this week). Where has the past school year gone? It feels like I just registered him for kindergarten and now he’s only a few short months away from the first grade!
For the graduation ceremony, Logan’s class put on a performance where they sang several songs (in English and Spanish) and then the classroom teacher presented each student with a certificate of kindergarten graduation. Logan was first, either because he was sitting first in his row or because of his last name. Not sure. Logan claims the certificates were distributed alphabetically.
After the ceremony, the school provided a lunch for all the graduating students and families. The weather was wonderful, so the luncheon was held outside. It was so much fun watching Logan and I am so grateful both Noah and I were able to take time off work to attend the event!
At home, we surprised Logan with a Congratulations Grad balloon and a GIANT grad cupcake!
Here are a few pictures from the celebration. You can see all the pictures from the event here.
Sadly, last month my Aunt Ruthanna passed away after a courageous battle against cancer. Although we are heartbroken that she is no longer with us on earth, we rejoice in the fact that she is no longer in pain and has rejoined her beloved husband in heaven.
To honor her in life and death, we traveled to Pennsylvania to attend the funeral and spend some time with relatives, some of which I haven’t seen in twenty years and others I just met for the first time! Although the funeral was a somber event, it was good to get out of town and show Logan some Pennsylvania sites.
But first, we had to meet Aunt Gretna at the airport!
Some of the places we dragged him to included Gettysburg National Park:
The Turkey Hill Experience (who doesn’t love unlimited ice cream?):
and Amish Country:
Cousins! A shot of three of the younger cousins in the family. Logan and the one on the left are only separated by a few months in age but are a generation apart. Logan and the cousin on the right are a few years apart in age but are from the same generation.
A full selection of photos from the trip can be viewed here.
Wow! We have a six year old! At times it’s hard to believe that this 4-foot tall child once weighed a mere five pounds and fit inside me! The more and more Logan grows, the more and more he doesn’t look a spec like me. Haha! In fact, he looks very similar to a picture of Logan’s uncle at the same age. Well, it’s obvious who’s genes took dominance in this kid!
Logan is at such a fun age! He’s still super verbose and is interested in so many different activities! As I posted earlier, one such activity is archery. So much so that Logan wanted to have a combination archery and Transformers birthday party. So, we all met up at the local range and then headed back to the house for pizza and Transformers cake.
His party was a few days before his actual birthday, which just means the celebration is prolonged. One of Logan’s favorite gifts was a new bike! Last summer Logan learned how to ride without training wheels, but also outgrew his little beginner bike. Now, he gets to relearn how to balance on a new bike that should last him through a few years of growth! We tricked out his new ride with some spoke wheels and a new bell. Along with turning six, we’ve also entered the phase of goofy faces in every just about picture.
A few days prior to his birthday, we got hit with a blizzard, which dumped two-feet of snow. Thankfully the plow came through and there was enough clear road for Logan to test out his new wheels!
It’s no secret that Noah and I enjoy shooting firearms. So, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that we enjoy shooting bows either. Logan is still a bit young for his own gun (don’t freak, we’ll start him with something small…like a .45 j/k), but he’s not too young to start learning to shoot with a bow. I was close to his age when I first used a longbow in Girl Scouts. Last year, Noah and I talked about how fun it would be to set up an archery range on our mountain property and had already started turning the mental wheels on making that happen this summer. Recently, Noah acquired a compound bow for hunting (he’s thinking about going for an archery tag in addition to rifle, although probably not this year), so I too acquired a new bow and Logan got one of his birthday presents early. We bought Logan’s beginner longbow last year on sale and have squirreled it away.
We took out the bows last weekend, as we finally had some decent weather, and went to a local archery range to test them out. Logan was so excited and really took to the sport. He’s only shooting from 5-10 yards, but for his second time ever, he managed to get one arrow to stick in the target! (First time Logan shot a bow was Labor Day weekend 2015.) Of course, neither Noah nor I took any photos last weekend. Whoops!
We did set-up a target in our backyard and marked off every five yards. I was looking forward to getting some target practice in today, but we didn’t get much accomplished before the wind make being outside less fun. However, we did take some pictures! I’ll be sure to take ones of the range on the mountain property when we make it out there this summer. For now, we’ll continue to freak out our neighbors…or venture to the local range.
